Black Gate – Page 238 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Heroika II: Skirmishers – Heroism on the History: Fantasy Battlefront

Sunday, May 3, 2020 SELindberg Comments 2 comments

The Heroika anthology series is created by author and editor Janet Morris (known for her Heroes in Hell, Sacred Band of Stepsons, Kerrion Empire, and Silistra Quartet series). The first volume Heroika I: Dragon Eaters featured seventeen stories from across the globe, from ancient to modern times arranged chronologically. Black Gate reviewer Fletcher Vredenburgh reported:

Too many anthologies pick a tone and then it doesn’t vary from story to story. Heroika avoids that. Connected by the themes of heroism and dragon-fighting, it allows room for varying styles of mythic tales and heroic fantasy as well as all-out pulp craziness.

Heroika II: Skirmishers follows suit, this time with twelve heroic tales spanning ancient history to modern times, arranged chronologically again.

Most authors have a historical fiction bent, so Skirmishers really is 50% historical fiction and 50% fantasy. Brief forwards provide context to each story. This post offers a brochure-like tour guide of these battlegrounds.

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Vintage Treasures: Beyond the Beyond by Poul Anderson

Saturday, May 2, 2020 John ONeill Comments 22 comments

Beyond the Beyond Poul Anderson-back-small

Beyond the Beyond paperback original (Signet first edition, August 1969). Cover artist unknown.

When I pick up an old paperback these days, it tends to be an anthology or collection. There aren’t very many published nowadays, and I miss them.

So naturally I’m reading many of the old paperbacks I missed out on in my youth. One of my recent favorites is Beyond the Beyond, a thick collection of six stories by Poul Anderson. Anderson was one of the most prolific SF writers of the 20th Century, and he produced dozens of collections in his lifetime. This one is particularly interesting to me because, as far as I know, it’s his only collection of novellas.

Anderson was a terrific science fiction short story writer, and he was even better at length. Beyond the Beyond contains six long tales published between 1954-1967, including a story in his David Falkayn: Star Trader series, one in his Technic History, and two in his popular and long-running Psychotechnic League saga. These aren’t Anderson’s best-known stories, not by a long shot, but this is a decent snapshot of his work in the SF magazines during his most productive period in the 50s and 60s.

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Rogue Blades Presents: What Would Your Hero Say to You?

Friday, May 1, 2020 Ty Johnston Comments 6 comments

When I started out as a writer of fiction in the late 1980s, one of my favorite magazines was Weird Tales. Over the next decade or so, I submitted a half dozen stories to Weird Tales, none of which were ever accepted for publication. Still, even though none of my tales ever landed there, I learned a lot from the letters I received from one of the editors, George H. Scithers.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Mr. Scithers. If not, surely you’ve heard of some of his work. He was the first editor for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, for which he won two Hugo awards. He was also editor at Amazing Stories, and of numerous anthologies. At Weird Tales, he won a World Fantasy Award along with Darrell Schweitzer. He was known among writers and readers and editors.

Unfortunately we lost Mr. Scithers a decade ago, but his legacy lives on in the work he produced and in fandom. Many of today’s readers probably don’t even realize how much they owe to this gentleman.

And “gentleman” is not a word I use lightly. I never knew Mr. Scithers personally. He and I never met. I can’t speak to his everyday attitudes and demeanor. Yet he was always kind and supportive in the reply letters he wrote back to me as a budding writer. He always had good things to say while not being afraid to point out where I needed to polish. He could be critical without being overbearing and negative, a trait that seems lost in today’s world. Also, I’ve met with or had correspondence with other people who actually did know or had at least met Mr. Scithers, and every single one of those individuals has had good things to say about George. So I feel my calling him a “gentleman” is most apt, especially as every correspondence I had with him was most friendly and congenial.

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An Ignored 1952 Science Fiction Film

Friday, May 1, 2020 Steven H Silver

Just Imagine (Maureen O’Sullivan, John Garrick)

The history of science fiction cinematic musicals may not be broad, but it has depth, dating back to the very first science fiction “talkie.” Just Imagine was made in 1930 and starred John Garrick, El Brendel, Frank Albertson, and Maureen O’Sullivan. Today, O’Sullivan may be the best remembered for her portrayals of Jane Parker opposite Johnny Weismuller in six Tarzan films beginning with Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932 and ending with Tarzan’s New York Adventure a decade later. Unfortunately, Just Imagine doesn’t work as a musical, as a science fiction film, or as a comedy. Its place in history is assured simply by the fact that it got there first.

One of the most success science fiction films is one that many, perhaps most, of the people who have seen it don’t realize, or consider, to be a science fiction film. Released in 1952, it would have been eligible for a Hugo Award at the 11^th Worldcon in Philadelphia where they were first given out, had there been a Dramatic Presentation Award, along with films such as Zombies of the Stratosphere, Radar Men from the Moon, Red Planet Mars, April 1, 2000, and Jack and the Beanstalk.

The film is Singin’ in the Rain, starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, and Jean Hagen.

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Goth Chick News: Quarantine Ghost Patrol…

Thursday, April 30, 2020 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

One of my good friends from college works for the Canadian embassy in Jakarta, so when I heard this, I had to contact him to see if it was really a thing.

And it is.

Apparently, ghosts are a very real deal in Indonesia, and like everywhere else in the world, so is the continuing threat of Covid-19. The country is in fear of its economy and healthcare system being overwhelmed. Why? Because it has a population of 267 million located on 735,400 square miles. As opposed to the U.S., which has 382 million people on 3.8 million spacious square miles.

So it’s easy to see how devastating the virus could be to a small, densely populated island, which is why the authorities there have very little tolerance for quarantine violators.

An article in the Jakarta Post from last week quotes Kusdinar Untung Yuni Sukowati, an Indonesian politician, as saying, “If there’s an empty and haunted house in the village, put people in there and lock them up.” Yep, you read that right. And she’s not talking about the Halloween-funhouse kind either. Belief in the presence of spirits, called ruh, is deeply rooted in all the Malaysian cultures, with each region having its own variations. Though many spirits are harmless, a quick internet search turned up no less than 81 named Malaysian demons. People there take their supernatural entities seriously.

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Polygon on 17 New Science Fiction and Fantasy Books to Check Out in April

Thursday, April 30, 2020 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

It’s good to see Andrew Liptak back in the saddle, doing what he does best — telling the world about great SF books. Liptak left The Verge last August, but it wasn’t long before he landed at Polygon, and his book column doesn’t seem to have suffered for it. His list of the best books for April includes nine we’ve already discussed here — such as Titan’s Day by Dan Stout, Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang, and Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett — but more than a few tantalizing titles we somehow managed to overlook. Here’s three of the most interesting.

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie (Del Rey, 320 pages, $27 in hardcover, $11.99 in digital formats, April 7, 2020)

Bonds of Brass is the first installment of Emily Skrutskie’s Bloodright trilogy. Set in the far future, the book introduces 10-year-old Ettian Nassun, whose life was turned upside-down when the oppressive Umber Empire invaded his homeworld as it fought against the Archon Empire. Years later, Ettian enters the Empire’s military academy — a way for a war orphan like himself to move up in society. There he meets and befriends Gal Veres, the heir to the empire that irrevocably changed his life. When their classmates try to assassinate Gal, Ettian comes to his aid, then is forced to make a devastating choice: side with the man who stands to inherit the system that killed his parents, or join the growing rebellion to take it down.

Kirkus Reviews says that Skrutskie’s “thoughtful SF portrayal of children navigating war, displacement, and PTSD while finding love and friendship in unimaginable circumstances is very much worth the read.”

Read an excerpt.

Emily Skrutskie is the author of Hullmetal Girls and The Abyss Surrounds Us, both of which were reviewed right here by Elizabeth Galewski.

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Breaking News: HBO’s The Plot Against America Parts 4-6

Wednesday, April 29, 2020 James Enge Comments 0 Comment

The story so far: in this tale of an alternate America, based on a pseudo-memoir written by Philip Roth, anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh was elected president in 1940, keeping the USA out of the war in its darkest hours and inaugurating a scary time for American Jews, especially 9-year-old Philip Levin (Azhy Robertson).

Feelings about the Lindbergh administration vary through America’s Jewish community. For some, like Rabbi Bengelsdorf (John Tuturro) and his new bride Evelyn (Winona Ryder), it’s an opportunity for social climbing and collaboration. To some, like young Sandy Levin (Caleb Malis), Lindbergh is a hero and any concerns to the contrary come from ignorant frightened “ghetto Jews” — like his parents. For some, like Philip’s overbearing Uncle Monty (David Krumholz), business is good; the nation is at peace; there are worse things than President Lindbergh.

Others (young Philip’s parents, played by Morgan Spector and Zoe Kazan, and his cousin Alvin, played by Anthony Boyle) are intent on resisting the tide of anti-Semitism rising in America and the rest of the world. But, tragically, they can’t agree on what should be done and end up fighting with each other as much or more than with the real enemy.

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Future Treasures: Lake of Darkness by Scott Kenemore

Wednesday, April 29, 2020 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

It’s always nice to read a book set in my hometown. Scott Kenemore’s Lake of Darkness, arriving next week in hardcover, has the added appeal of being set in lawless WWI-era Chicago, an era already rich with racial tension, drama, and larger-than-life characters. Layer in a creepy serial killer and a detective with a fascinating crew of magicians and mystics, and you’ve got all the elements of great tale.

Scott Kenemore’s previous books include the Zombie trilogy (Zombie, Ohio, Zombie, Illinois, and Zombie, Indiana) and The Grand Hotel, but his latest book is getting a lot more attention. Simon Strantzas says Lake of Darkness is a “Chicago tale as strange and bizarre as the twin murders at its heart… an exceptional read,” and Dean Jobb (Empire of Deception) calls it “a fast-paced tale of madness, murder, and a streetwise detective on the trail of a depraved serial killer… a stylish, clever whodunit.”

Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, saying:

This superb blend of noir and horror from Kenemore (Zombie, Ohio) centers on the search for a serial killer who targets twins in WWI-era Chicago, starting with two 10-year-old African-Americans, a brother and sister, whose heads are cut off and switched. Other murders follow in which black children’s heads are severed and then attached to their siblings’ torsos. Mayor Big Bill Thompson, who has eyes on the White House, is concerned that the killings could harm Chicago’s reputation and stem the migration of African-Americans from the South. Thompson gives Joe “Flip” Flippity, one of Chicago’s few black cops, carte blanche to solve the case. Flip is aided by such unusual allies as the Amazing Drextel Tark, a magician whose illusions employ his own twin brother, and elderly Ursula Green, who uses a crystal ball animated by a supernatural force “larger and stronger than herself.” Kenemore keeps the tension high throughout…

Lake of Darkness will be published by Talos on May 5, 2020. It is 264 pages, priced at $15.99 in paperback and $11.99 in digital formats. Get more details at the publisher’s website here.

See all our recent coverage of the best upcoming fantasy and horror here.

Wordsmiths: Interview with Charlie Jane Anders, Recorded Live at Can*Con 2019

Tuesday, April 28, 2020 Brandon Crilly Comments 1 comment

2019 feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it? One of my other roles is Programming Lead for Can*Con, Ottawa’s annual conference on science fiction, fantasy and horror literature. I’ve had the great fortune to sit down for one-on-one interviews with a few Guests of Honor, most recently a fabulous conversation with Charlie Jane Anders at Can*Con 2019.

Charlie Jane is the author of The City in the Middle of the Night (Tor, 2019), co-host of the Hugo-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, and has contributed work to a variety of anthologies and collections. We get into her short fiction, her work with io9, her thoughts on genre and community, and more.

This was a blast, and I hope you enjoy it, too!

An Ottawa teacher by day, Brandon has been published in On Spec, Pulp Literature, Electric Athenaeum, and elsewhere. His latest publications include his first comic, “True Balance,” available on Comixology and DriveThruComics, and a reprint of his short story “Rainclouds,” in A Dying Planet from Flame Tree Press. You can follow Brandon at brandoncrilly.wordpress.com or on Twitter: @B_Crilly.

New Treasures: Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

Tuesday, April 28, 2020 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

What is it about the Victorian Era that entrances modern readers? I’m not sure exactly, but something about investigating ghastly crimes on the gas-lit streets of London at midnight appeals to us all, I think. It certainly appeals to Jess Kidd, anyway. Her latest novel is Things in Jars — love that title! — which Kirkus Reviews calls “Creepy, violent, and propulsive; a standout gothic mystery.”

Things in Jars is the tale of a formidable female sleuth in Victorian London (with a ghostly suitor) who is pulled into the macabre world of fanatical anatomists and crooked surgeons while investigating the kidnapping of a very special child. The Guardian offers a more substantial summary, calling it:

High-camp crime… A pipe-smokin’, crypt-crashin’ heroine brings originality and freshness to this Victorian detective drama. This pacy piece of Victorian crime fiction delivers chills galore: pickled babies, wicked surgeons, a head in a hatbox and other unsettling discoveries.

Jess Kidd is the author of Himself, a “supernaturally skilled debut” (Vanity Fair) about a haunted Irish town, and Mr. Flood’s Last Resort, a tale of “Irish magical realism… mistaken identities, and a hoarder’s creepy house” (Library Journal), among others. Things in Jars was published in hardcover in February; here’s the description.

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